Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

We Have a Problem . . .

. . . and according to Malcolm Pollack, there's no fixing it:

We have a problem, and as far as I can see, it isn’t going away; indeed, I expect it will get sharply worse in the wake of next month’s election. The problem, simply put, is that although the bedrock principle of the American political formula is “consent of the governed”, we have now reached the point where whichever faction comes to power will govern entirely without the consent of half the population.

This was not always the case. Once upon a time — within my own memory — there was enough commonality on social, political, and moral axioms that those out of power would subordinate their dissatisfaction to the importance of playing the game, and would look at political setbacks as little more than a bad year for the home team. “Next season” was never too far off, and meanwhile we could live with the opposition temporarily in power because we knew that, despite some differences about policy, we more or less agreed on the fundamental axioms of American life.

Now, things are different. For the losers in the next election (whichever side that is), being governed by the victors isn’t going to feel like like losing a round; it will feel like being subjugated. It’s going to be like having their homeland pillaged and their altars desecrated by a despised and unholy enemy before whom they will be made to kneel. And that is going to get worse, not better, as time goes by.

The two factions, the Cloud People and the Dirt People, each have power, but very different kinds of power (the power of the latter is still mostly latent and unorganized, but it is real). Clearly, we can’t live together, and neither is willing to be ruled by the other — but we can’t get away from each other, either.

The problem is summed up perfectly in the final sentence.  I don't have a real solution but a return to federalism may help mitigate tensions, as I suggest in my latest Substack upload.

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Bill Vallicella

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14 responses to “We Have a Problem . . .”

  1. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    I think we may take solace in the fact that the Dirt People vastly outnumber the Cloud People, and that after any hot contest, the Cloud People will find themselves a tiny, helpless minority.
    Then common sense will reign for quite awhile.
    Do you suppose I am being too optimistic?

    Reply
  2. BV Avatar
    BV

    The Cloud People need to bear in mind that it’s the Dirt People who have the guns. And to say it again, the Constitution is just paper, or parchment as the Founders might have said, without the concrete backup of 2A.
    Cloud vs. Dirt is not good terminology — after all, don’t we live by brains and not brawn?

    Reply
  3. Malcolm Pollack Avatar
    Malcolm Pollack

    I stole that Cloud/Dirt trope from the “Z-Man” (who has an excellent blog, here).
    I liked it because it makes the distinction between people who have to confront actual physical reality in their daily lives, and those who don’t. I think it’s a pretty good way to characterize the Great Divide.

    Reply
  4. Dmitri Avatar
    Dmitri

    Hi Bill
    I read your latest substack post on Federalism & this quote from Pollack’s blog. I think that both of you underestimate the high risk of hostile foreign parties and many of their local agents — many of which came through widely open borders — acting to steer US electorate from Trump. I want to be proven wrong of course. But attempts at his life are continuous and mainstream media downplaying these horrific events speaks volumes. The axis of evil countries, just like the current administration, have a clear interest to keep the current Obama regime in power and further deepen the cleavage between the Cloud people and the Dirt people. Just like Hamas, on behalf of Iran, went on their suicidal rampage in Israel because their bosses in Tehran could not stomach anymore the Saudi-Israeli normalization of relations, the situation is not that different if Trump wins the election — Iran, Russia and China have a lot to lose. They will do all they can to stop Trump’s win. I hope to be wrong.

    Reply
  5. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    I don’t mind being called a Dirt Person, I take it as a badge of honor.
    — Catacomb Joe.
    (Catacombs are in the dirt.)

    Reply
  6. BV Avatar
    BV

    Malcolm on the Dirt-Cloud distinction:
    >>I liked it because it makes the distinction between people who have to confront actual physical reality in their daily lives, and those who don’t. I think it’s a pretty good way to characterize the Great Divide.<< It's OK as far as it goes as a quickie-schema but cannot be upheld long upon reflection. I'll take myself as an example since I know this guy pretty well. (What I am about to say also applies to you, I suspect, but I won't press the point.) Am I a Dirt man or a Cloud Man? Neither (or both?) Most of the money I have made in this world I have made by my wits and not by doing dirty jobs. But scroll up to read an old post about my grunt jobs. I am from the working class, and I still as an old man do dirty jobs: plumbing, auto maintenance, yard work, pest control, house cleaning, some electrical. I cook, clean, do my own laundery: no maid, no butler, no gofers to stand in line at the DMV, etc. But I am clearly an intellectual: no day goes by without hours of careful reading and writing, not to mention praying and meditating and playing and studying chess, and any day without hours of those activities I consider wasted. I don't spend time in bars, in idle talk and socializing, in watching spectator sports, in any of that typical working stiff crapola. You can't slot me by the quickie schema. But neither can you slot Trump or J D Vance. Read Hillbilly Elegy if you haven't already. That boy came out of the Appalachian dirt and may well end up POTUS -- and I hope he does. Is he a Cloud man or a Dirt man? Both (or neither?) A better candidate for the Great Divide is the divide between those who aim to preserve the American Republic and those who aim to destroy it in the crack-brained conceit that by destroying it they will thereby usher in a paradise on Earth, an immanentization of the eschaton. The Preservationists versus the Destructionists. This schema, too, is a simplification, but a better one than the Dirt People - Cloud People simplification. Not that the latter doesn't have some merit. By the way, Malcolm, I strongly recommend that you read Paul Fussell's CLASS (1983) if you haven't already. An oldie but a goodie. Brilliant, entertaining.

    Reply
  7. EG Avatar
    EG

    Bill,
    You write:
    “ Now values are not like tastes. Tastes cannot be reasonably discussed and disputed while values can.”
    Can you spell this out more, perhaps in terms of sharpening the distinction and saying what judgement and maybe aesthetic principles do to what evolves out of values? Why, for example, was saying something important about judgement and things like the Sublime (and our experience and capacity for experiencing it) important enough for Kant among others to write a book about it.

    Reply
  8. Malcolm Pollack Avatar
    Malcolm Pollack

    Bill,
    You’re hands-down a Dirt Person, by dint of your extended contact with physical reality. (Do you think Kamala Harris or Barack Obama or Paul Krugman or Gavin Newsom ever dug graves or felled trees?)
    To buttress my case, just look where your sympathies lie in our current crisis. (Thus it is shown.)
    You can take the person out of the dirt, but you can’t take the dirt out of the person. It’s like an inoculation.

    Reply
  9. jim reibel Avatar
    jim reibel

    Gentlemen:
    Whether we call it dirt/cloud or country/ruling the attitude is the same. There is a class which is convinced it is intellectually, experientially and morally superior and is entitled to rule. It would not be a bad thing if they were the were really “Guardians”. Problem is that the theory has not played out well through the ages. Human nature is a problem which brings in the friend/foe and hostis/inimicus conflicts which ultimately develop.

    Reply
  10. BV Avatar
    BV

    But Malcolm, Comrade Kamala worked at McDonalds! Right? [grin]
    I think we both could be described as conservative populists as opposed to socialist populists. (It is interesting that the Daily Worker supports Trump.) We both want the American worker who is a CITIZEN to get a fair shake — which is impossible if the borders are left wide-open. Herewith a powerful old-time-Dem argument for border control.

    Reply
  11. BV Avatar
    BV

    Jim writes, >>There is a class which is convinced it is intellectually, experientially and morally superior and is entitled to rule.<< Yes, except that it isn't; they only fancy themselves to be so entitled, as you appreciate. More importantly, they reject our democratic republic as it was founded to be. But the scumbags are so fundamentally mendacious and Orwellianly language-subversive that they posture as the defenders of 'democracy.' They use the word to mean globalist oligarchy. It is hard to see how there could be peace with such filth.

    Reply
  12. jim reibel Avatar
    jim reibel

    BV
    I agree with your assessment. It appears to me that it illustrates how it reflects the evolution of the level of disagreement and conflict between two political groups to the existential as your point “A” in your reply to Malcolm. When the contention reaches the point of contempt it seems to me that further hardening of positions will follow and lead to violence. I think that the US is at this point.

    Reply
  13. BV Avatar
    BV

    Jim,
    It would be wonderful if we could arrange a ‘national divorce,’ the political equivalent of marital divorce. But I don’t see how that could be done without weakening ourselves over against our geo-political adversaries, the ChiComs, NoKo, the Russkis, and the radical Islamists whose main state sponsor is Iran. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Our greatest president, Lincoln, understood this very well.
    Hence what I said about federalism, which is too little too late and not much of a solution.
    After all, to take federalism seriously you would have to take 10A seriously, and our political enemies do not take the Constitution seriously despite their repeated brazen lies to the contrary.

    Reply
  14. BV Avatar
    BV

    Given what I just now wrote, the only way forward is to defeat the Kamalists and to do so decisively in a way that demoralizes them.

    Reply

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